News Corp (NWSA) Plans War Against Google (GOOG)
November 24, 2009 8:06 AM
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation (NASDAQ: NWSA) has planned an all out war against Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) by proposing to black out its news from Google’s search engine. The main issue here is that Google gets revenue from displaying ads next to news items of News Corp, which it does not share with News Corp.
Murdoch is contemplating moving his news to Bing, the search engine by Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT), but the move has not been finalized. But the move might hurt News Corp itself as about 14% of traffic to its website comes in from Google itself. The problem is that Google has become such a giant that messing with it may be counter-productive to the news company.
Microsoft on its part has not commented but it seems willing to cut a deal with News Corp to increase its share of the lucrative search engine advertising pie. It is also possible that if companies like New York Post and Fox News also follow suit, the regulator could cry foul over collusion and unfair practices. So Murdoch’s proposed move is not without its share of huge pitfalls.
